As part of an emergency landing drill, sixteen aircraft of the Indian Air Force on Tuesday took part in a touch-and-go exercise at an airstrip on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway.
IAF’s C-130 ‘Super Hercules’, a Rs 900-crore transport carrier, was the first to arrive on the expressway. While the aircraft was still in motion, Garud commandos disembarked from the C-130 to secure the landing strip. The crew later deployed a ramp to roll-out a camouflaged Gypsy. The IAF’s Jaguars, Mirages, Sukhoi 230s were also part of the exercise but did not land on the airstrip.
The drill was held to prepare the IAF to deal with emergencies, during which airforce bases are rendered inaccessible.
The Expressway is closed for commuters until 2 pm today. In order to ensure smooth conduct of the drill, authorities imposed traffic restrictions on the Expressway for the general public on Monday and Tuesday.
The IAF had conducted a similar exercise in 2016 to mark the opening of the Expressway. The 302-kilometre, six-lane, expressway — India’s longest — was inaugurated by the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. The Expressway, Akhilesh’s pet project, had taken a record two years to build